


heroes of our time

by axzanier



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-07-11 07:06:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7034989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/axzanier/pseuds/axzanier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What do a bunch of former Avengers do when the world no longer wants them?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I blame this damn story on watching Eurovision this year. The opening song hit me like a freight train and I got not one, but two bunnies screaming at me. One canon, one AU (which I probably won't post), but neither will let me go. As I appear to be channeling one very unhappy Steve Rogers, you'll get to enjoy me fumbling about in first person.

 

 

 

Title: _heroes of our time_

Author: A. X. Zanier

Status: WIP

Rating: R (Language, violence, sexual situations, the usual)

Fandom: _Marvel Cinematic Universe_

Disclaimer: a) The characters and basic story ideas of _Captain America/Avengers/et al_ are the property of others including, but not limited to Stan Lee, Marvel Studios, Disney Studios. Any additional characters or story ideas are mine. I make no money from this intellectual exercise. b) This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any opinions or views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the author and are used for storytelling purposes only.

Series: Apparently. Follows my short _No Rest for the Weary_

Spoilers: Oh hell yes. Any part of the MCU is fair game.

 

_heroes of our time_

_"What are you going to do now?"_

Sam had asked me that, oh, a couple weeks ago, I think. I hadn't had an answer for him them and still don't now.

Don't get me wrong, it had been a good question, I just had no clue where to go from here. I'd been soldier of one stripe or another for the formative parts of my life. I'd always been a fighter, I just got much better at it after the serum that physically made me the man I am today. I had all this power that was utterly useless for anything of even small importance, never mind great.

For all that I wore a mask when doing the hero schtick, far too many knew my face and with half the governments of the world wanting to see me in chains... well, doing what I considered my job was no longer an option.

The world had apparently decided that they no longer needed the type of hero I had become.

I looked about me as I strolled down the street, the sun casting deep shadows here and there, the people smiling and seemingly happy for the most part. Wakanda was a prosperous country overall and had the power to stand up to the UN should they come calling. Not that I worried about it over much. If they came... when they came, we'd run, I would not allow T'Challa or his country to face the wrath that would befall them.

No, we would pull up stakes and find another place to hide. I'm sure there are any number of old Hydra or SSR bases still standing, abandoned, but still more than adequate for a hidey hole should it be needed.

I sighed softly, catching my reflection in the mirror-like window of a shop I walked past, baseball cap low over my brow, head tipped down, so few could see my face, light jacket over the shirt even though the balmy weather didn't require it.

Just because we had been granted asylum by the King himself did not mean a phone call could not be made to any of a dozen hotlines that would send those same dozen authorities here in an effort to arrest me and take possession of Bucky.

Paranoid?

Maybe. But after having SHIELD turn out to be Hydra it felt more than justified.

There were days I wished I'd never been pulled out of the ice.

But then I think if I hadn't the world would be a much worse place.

Then I realize that is pure ego on my part. SHIELD, Fury, Hill, Tony, Thor, Clint, Nat and all those others would have still fought, probably even won, it just would have been differently and might have avoided some of the mess that happened because of my need, my obsession with finding my old friend Bucky.

Though, truth be told, Bucky would most likely still be the Winter Soldier and in the same place he currently is: on ice.

At least now he had the chance to be something else.

The cell phone stuffed deep into the pocket of my jeans vibrated and I debated ignoring it. It was never anything I wanted to see. Usually just Sam or Wanda checking in on me.

I hadn't contacted anyone on the outside since coming here. Hadn't dared. One text to the wrong person and they would know where we were and Wanda, if no one else, needed some peace, some time to deal with what she had done, by accident admittedly, and what had been done to her.

Ross and those at the Raft had not treated her with the kid gloves she had deserved, but as if she were the monster she feared she had become. Yes, her abilities could be used to hurt people, had in the past, but she had been given a second chance by the Avengers and chosen to use them to help instead of hurt others.

They had acted out of fear, which had done nothing more than reinforce her own worries about herself.

Was she dangerous? Yes.

But so was I. Perhaps more so since I had the experience to use my skills with a precision and deadly earnestness that could be frightening.

I had spoken to her several times, but she hadn't been ready to talk about what they had done to her. She spent most of her time in her rooms and I had given her the space she seemed to need.

And, I suppose, done the same for myself. Not that I hid in my rooms, but I most certainly avoided interaction with the locals. Oh, I knew most of the techs and doctors who were dealing with Bucky and the efforts to repair the damage to his mind, but other than them, Sam and Wanda, I kept mostly to myself. Created my routine and stuck to it. A run in the morning, sparring in the afternoon, or punching heavy bags until they burst, drop in to check on Bucky, maybe run into Sam, who had taken to hanging out with the private bodyguards of the King, who were very impressive fighters, learn what I could about the local culture including the language and then to bed.

Pretty much the same thing every day. I avoided the news now, the furor over the jailbreak at the Raft having finally died down, the news speculating as to whether or not I could actually be stopped if they managed to catch me. Tony, they can take away his suits, without Iron Man he goes back to being nothing more than a tech genius, but me... the power is in me, much like Wanda and can't be so easily contained.

The phone vibrated again, more insistently it seemed, so I pulled it out and read the half dozen texts there.

Summed up they read, _Get back here. Now!_ All from Sam, with increasing urgency.

I sighed and texted back, _Is Wanda okay?_ even as I turned about and began striding quickly back the way I came. While guests of the King, we were not staying in the palace itself, but apartments reserved for visiting dignitaries and the like. Far more than I deserved, but given we were essentially homeless and unable to access our funds in the US, we suffered through the lavish largess of his majesty's kindness and hoped we could repay it one day.

Once clear of the comparatively crowded streets I broke into a run, the one that Sam still made commentary about. On your left had become our code for all is good in the years since we'd met and begun working together.

_She's fine. Just hurry your lazy-ass up,_ came the quick response I glanced at before upping my speed another notch.

Something had clearly happened, enough for Sam to be worried and drag me back from my daily wallow in self-pity... I mean workout. I did not use my time to second guess my choices. They'd been the right ones, I knew that in my gut, more in my heart, but the amount of damage that had been done, both physical and personal had been on my mind constantly. The inability to sleep more than a few hours ongoing, which gave me plenty of time to second and triple guess myself.

Stupid perhaps, but with nothing else to occupy my mind aside from that one set of files...

My phone buzzed again, but I ignored it and pushed my pace a touch more, covering the last few hundred yards swiftly.

I slowed down as the residence came into view, not even the least bit out of breath, which would annoy Sam to no end, but caused me to smile slightly.

It was still in place when I opened the door and rushed inside to the lobby. Sam stood there, phone in hand, thumbs flashing over the tiny keyboard, my phone vibrating seconds later.

I debating texting back just to annoy him, but instead said, "What's so important?"

He twitched and spun around. "Took you long enough," he groused, stuffing his phone back into his pocket.

"Well, even I can only run five miles so fast."

His eyes narrowed slightly. "Where were you?"

I shrugged. "Downtown, window shopping."

He shook his head as he glanced at his watch, calculating how long it had taken me to run the distance. "I hate you," he muttered, just loud enough for me to hear.

He didn't. He just kept forgetting that I could do things far beyond those of mortal men, which I kind of liked. I wasn't always Captain America to him, especially these days. These days I tended to be nothing more than Steve. A nice change in some ways, but I had to admit I'd forgotten how to be Steve. I liked it when he reminded me that I didn't have to be _super_ all the time.

"Where's the fire?" I asked, easily able to see the tension written all over him. Something had gone wrong; not with Wanda, but something. "Bucky?"

"Still a popsicle as far as I know. There's been-"

"An earthquake," an new voice finished and I turned to see the King of Wakanda walking towards us with two of his bodyguards flanking him.

"What he said," Sam grumbled, looking unhappy to have his thunder stolen. "Your highness." he nodded to the King who gave him a grin for a moment, followed by a far more serious look.

It didn't take me more than heartbeat to understand why Sam had called me back and I said the only thing possible, "How can we help?"


	2. Chapter 2

"There's heat signatures on the third, fifth and sixth floors. Maybe a dozen all together."

Sam and his drone flew high overhead using IR to find people still trapped in the buildings that stood, using that term very loosely. We had a team of about two dozen of Wakanda's finest assisting us, with me ostensibly in charge. It seemed T'Challa trusted me to lead them, which had surprised me given I knew none of the men and women on the misison. None of them had questioned it and had done nothing but follow my orders from the moment we had touched down.

We focused on rescue, getting people out of structures before they collapsed or the fires consumed them.

"All right three groups," I pointed to the nearest squad. "You the sixth, you the fifth and you the third."

They nodded and broke off without question. "In and out just like the others, we'll deal with injuries once we have them clear."

I looked over the area, dust and smoke a heavy haze that nearly blotted out the clear blue sky high above, the sun nearing its zenith, and was thankful for the full face mask that included a filter else we would all have been choking on the miasma the quake had left behind. No one would know me as anything other than another another member of the Wakanda rescue force. Granted, they were far more an army than EMTs, but that would not slow them down much, if at all. There were two qualified medics with us, and I wasn't half bad at basic triage, we carried all the gear necessary with us, the goggles we wore as high tech as anything Stark Industries had produced in recent years.

Sam, was taking the biggest risk, but very few were bothering to watch the skies, unless a copter could be heard, and there had been plenty of them, though most just flew over, unable to land amongst the rubble of collapsed buildings.

"Sam, where next?"

"Two blocks over, another half dozen on a rooftop."

"Once we're clear here we'll head that way. See if you can give them a heads up."

"Done," he replied, the hiss of his jets overhead for an instant as he headed for the next target.

Group one appeared in the doorway just as the ground heaved beneath my feet knocking them to the ground as the world about us began to groan and scream aloud.

"Aftershock," I bellowed, running towards the group huddled in the shadow of the building that had begun to shed fascia like a deadly rain. "Move." I motioned for them to head for the only clear area around, and watched as the Wakandans literally lifted the foursome and carried them away from the building.

"Sit-rep," I called out, hoping the other squads would be able to respond.

"Stairwell," came the quick response, "We have eight to extract."

"Keep moving, I'll meet you." Only seconds had passed, but the aftershock continued, the building swaying in response to the earth moving beneath it. I could see the doorway to the stairwell, the door slamming open and closed until it suddenly jammed halfway open. It took an instant to assess why; the stairwell had begun to collapse.

The door buckled, folding in half and popping off its hinges with a rending metallic sound that was nearly lost in the roar of the ground beneath us. "ETA," I barked.

"Ninety seconds," came back, but I could see that would not be enough time. I glanced behind me to find the way out mostly clear; only that particualr side of the building collapsing.

"Cap?" Sam asked, but I did not take the time to explain the situation, I rushed the doorway which shrank before my eyes, planted my feet and set my hands against the lintel. The weight tremendous, the pressure even greater, but I locked my arms and thought happy thoughts. A minute was all I needed to hold this, I could do that easy. I mean I'd kept a helicopter from flying away with just my arms, I got to use my legs here, that should make it easier, right?

Time seemed to crawl by and hours must have passed before the group of dust covered locals led by my team staggered down the shifting and swaying stairs and towards me. I blocked a fair part of the exit, but dare not move as I could feel the steel joist folding about my hands. The steel beam collapsing under the stress being placed on it by a half-dozen stories of concrete wanting to collapse. I shifted as much as I could and growled, "Go."

I got a quick nod and they squeezed past me, out into the open lobby and freedom.

"We're clear," came a seeming eternity later.

"Thank god," I muttered. Now I had a problem, because as soon as I shifted this damn wall was going to come down no matter what I did. I would need to get clear or discover the hard way if I could survive having a building dropped on top of me. Granted it was a fairly small building, but still made up of tons of steel and concrete that would most likely not do me a whole lot of good.

Plus, it would set a bad example for the team I led.

And Sam would probably get angry at me.

That would probably be worse than being buried alive.

I realized the ground had stopped shaking, but the building didn't seem to care, it fully intended to fall apart right now.

I sucked in a deep breath, preparing for the extra effort this would take.

With a grunt of exertion I shoved upwards, gaining milliseconds of space and time and dove towards the only way out. I rolled even as that half of the structure rumbled and an explosion of dust billowed up. I got back to my feet as quick as I could, missing my shield right about now. I didn't dive through the front window so much as be blasted out, the pressure wave thrusting me forward with surprising force.

I stumbled, tried to recover, but ended up being thrown ass over teakettle to end up on my back watching a cloud of gray drift past me, blocking out the blue sky that had been there when I'd gone in.

There was a rock or something digging into my back, but otherwise I seemed to be unharmed, just uninterested in moving at the moment.

This hero gig could be exhausting at times.

Sam landed beside me some unknowable time later, wings folding in behind his back, worry on his face.

"Cap. Cap? You okay?"

"Better than the building. They get everyone out?" My ears rang even with the comms system online, which meant I'd probably been hit in the head at some point during my flight out.

He held his hand out and I grasped it, allowing him to tug me upright. "All clear here, but dozens of other structures went down in the aftershock."

I nodded and turned to look at the men and women who had gotten those people out. They all watched me in silence and I had to wonder what they were thinking. Did they fear me? The fugitive American who had broken into the most secure prison on the planet. Who had destroyed an airport just to save his friend.

A small child wiggled out his mother's hold and ran over to me. He stared up at me for a long moment eyes flicking over my masked face, then came to some decision. He spoke aloud in his native tongue then wrapped his body about my waist in a hug.

That seemed to break the dam of shock and awe on the others and they all gathered around to thank me, to thank _us_.

This... this is what had been missing in me. Forget the super. I could just be a hero. Help people who could not do it themselves. We all could. And that would do for now.

"Sam, where next?"

He nodded, stepped away from the group and took to the air.


	3. Chapter 3

Wanda was pissed.

And maybe she had a right to be. We, meaning I, hadn't even thought about taking her along when we'd left to play rescue heroes. We'd been gone three days and had only left when serious UN assistance had arrived along with reporters, lots of them. The need to keep a low profile had outweighed what little we could continue to do to help. Those coming in had the resources we lacked and would take good care of those displaced by the disaster.

Even in the midst of a tragedy such as we had witnessed videos got out, some of them showing me performing feats that no ordinary human could do, no matter how desperate the situation. Wouldn't be difficult to put two and two together and figure out the man covered in black from head to to toe was the former Avenger known as Captain America. Especially with Sam flying around. Most of those shots had been blurry, but there weren't too many of those EXO suits lying about in Africa.

I'd cleaned up and scored a few hours of sleep before heading to a debriefing with T'Challa when I'd been intercepted on the way there by one angry scarlet witch. I hadn't seen her, just found myself stopped dead with glowing lines of energy wrapped about me.

I didn't fight it, just turned my head to look at her, eyes narrowed and jaw set in stubborn anger.

"Why did you leave me behind?" she asked, accent thicker than usual in her ire.

I shook my head. "I didn't."

She cocked her head to the left, fingers twitching and tightening the tendrils about me for a moment.

"Ow," I said, not because it actually hurt, but because sometimes, much like me, she did not realize her own strength. I knew what she could do, and, yes, she could _hurt_ me with what would probably be a minimal effort of will.

The angry red energy dissipated instantly, but she did not apologize. "Why then?"

I scratched the back of my head, and tried not to yawn. I wanted to sleep for another seventy years or so I felt so worn. "At the risk of you getting angrier... we forgot?"

For an instant the red energy appeared about her hands, then faded as my words sank in. "You forgot me?"

I nodded and spread my hands wide in apology. "T'Challa asked, we geared up and left. Took maybe thirty minutes to get in the air."

"I would have helped," she said, sounding sad, defeated and maybe lonely.

I walked over to her and set a hand on her shoulder. "I know you could have. In case you hadn't figured it out, I'm not perfect."

"Oh, I've known that all along," she snarked, a tiny grin appearing on her lips. "Next time I am going with you, you are not the only one who needs to prove they are not..." She came to a confused halt, not certain what words to end her statement with.

"Dangerous? Evil?" I filled in when she couldn't decide.

She nodded. "And more. My mistake is what led to this, I need... want to do everything I can to show them I can be more."

"You don't need to prove your worth to anyone," I argued, but she shook her head.

"Of course we do. We're supposed to be better than all of them. Heroes... Superheroes and all they can see is the damage we caused, not the sacrifices we made to save as many as we could." She looked up at me her words gaining a plaintive note, "Why is that?"

"People distrust what they don't understand," I offered up by way of an explanation, though in truth I didn't understand it either. During the war, no one had questioned what I and the Howling Commandos could do, just thanked us and sent us out to try and get killed some more. But that's what we did, we took on the hard jobs that no one else could do and, yeah, we sacrificed to do it, sometimes blood, friendship, time, love and, occasionally, lives.

She sighed heavily. An adequate response, I supposed.

"What will we do now? We are not Avengers, the world does not want us any longer." She seemed so lost, more so than after Sokovia and the loss of her brother and I realized I'd been an idiot to leave her alone. Instead of healing she'd felt abandoned, unsure where she stood with herself, much less the world at large.

Not that I felt much different. It had taken this mission for me to find some solid fotting to stand upon once again.

"What do you think we should do?" I asked, wondering if she had any idea what she wanted to do with her life.

"Do?" she echoed. "Everything I can. Help people. We don't have to be fighting aliens or robots to save people, do we?"

And that's why she had been so angry. We had left her behind to go save a comparatively tiny corner of the world without realizing she might want to do her part as well. And while it wouldn't have been pretty, and could have gotten her killed, that would always be her choice to make, not mine.

Earning the right to be an Avenger had earned her the same right to choose for herself. Little wonder she'd rebelled when Tony and Vison had confined her to the compound.

When I didn't react quickly enough she added, "What? Do you think I'm going to get a job as a secretary or something? And you, are you going to get an ordinary day job and just fade into obscurity? Or maybe join your friend in cryo-stasis, let the world go to hell while hoping you wake up to a better one?" Anger and frustration could easily be heard in her tone. She had begun as a Hydra experiment, taken her place as an Avenger and then thrown it all away to stand by my side.

And she was right. we could not go back to being ordinary people, the hero thing was in our blood, our souls, but I had to admit it would be nice to just be _me_ for a while. Sadly, I didn't know who that was. Even before the serum I'd just wanted to help, which is why I'd tried to join the Army so many times. I couldn't _not_ do something when needed.

I felt kind of bad that Wanda had caught the same annoying bug. Least I was in good company.

"I can't say another situation like this will come up," I finally said to her.

"It will and we will do what we can to help, yes?"

I nodded, feeling a sense of pride for her and all she had accomplished. "Yes. Now, want to sit in on a boring meeting, see and hear about all the fun you missed?"

"I would like that very much."

Together we walked towards the conference room.


	4. Chapter 4

A few months later we woke Bucky up.

Those files had been as helpful as I had hoped and there had been more than a few ideas tossed around that could work, might work, but not a single one of them could be tested while he lay there in the cryo chamber.

So we woke him up and I volunteered to be there when he finally regained consciousness.

"What the hell happened to you?" Bucky asked when he laid his eyes upon me, leaning against the wall across the room from the bed they'd moved him to so he'd be more comfortable as he woke.

I'd cleaned up, but the bruises had yet to fade from my skin. Even my impressive healing factor needed more than twelve hours to hide the damage after having part of a mountain fall on me. Wanda had been the one to dig me out, so to speak, her telekinetic talent able to get to me hours before any mundane rescuers ever could hope to.

A mine cave in this time, with dozens of workers trapped within. We'd gotten them all out, though sadly not all alive, but many of those had died in the initial collapse and nothing we could have done would have saved them. Sam had felt left out, his wings all but useless on this occasion, but had scouted what he could from the air and added his strength to shifting the tons of rock that had fallen.

I shrugged. "Tripped," I answered, which made his lips twitch. I used to tell him that back in the day when I'd stood up for myself yet again and taken a beating. I'd always had the heart of a fighter, just lacked the strength to back it up.

"Punk," he muttered, sitting up to rub his face with his single hand, the stump of his cybernetic arm twitching in an effort to echo the action of the other. "How long was I out this time?"

"Four months."

"And you have a... solution?"

"We have ideas," I tell him and watch him frown, clearly not liking that answer.

"Then put me back under. It isn't safe."

I have to admire his resolve, his unwillingness to put others at risk, that's more like the Bucky I knew back during the war, but he hadn't thought it all the way through, so focused on not being the monster he'd forgotten we might need some assistance from the man.

"Buck, we can't exactly test the ideas while you're playing sleeping beauty."

He glared at me.

"Look, we're secure, or near as we can get anyway, in a reasonably controlled environment, and unless you plan to go running down the streets of the capitol shouting exactly who you are, no one will care." I shift, the still healing ribs shouting their unhappiness at me. "I know you don't want to be the Winter Soldier ever again-"

"I won't, Steve, I'm done with that life. I'm just not certain I'm deserving of any other."

I knew that, he'd expressed similar sentiments when we'd been on the run trying to prove his innocence in regards to the Vienna bombing, which he had indeed been cleared of, still there were any number of other assassinations the Winter Soldier was wanted for. No chance I would permit him to stand a trial of any sort even if he thought it might grant him some sort of atonement. "You don't believe in second chances?"

He pulled his legs in and rested his elbow on the his knee, looking like he wanted to clasp his hands so tightly the knuckles would turn white with the tension. "I already got one. You got me away from Hydra."

I shook my head. "Doesn't count, not really, you didn't know who you were. You do now."

"What am I gonna do? Join SHIELD?"

Well, no, but he was on the right track at least. "Why not? Nat did. Wanda did."

He snorted, shaking his head. "SHIELD is dead, even your Natalia knows that and Wanda... she joined the Avengers, not the same thing."

Damn, he really must want to go back into cryo.

"You could just go live your life," I suggested, realizing he might not have any interest in playing soldier or hero ever again.

"I was doing that when you led the authorities straight to me," he grouched sounding bitter.

I shook my head. "No you were surviving, that's not the same."

He dropped his head down, long hair hiding his face from prying eyes and sat there silent for several long minutes before sighing heavily. "I'm not the same person I was before... before they screwed with my head."

"I know." And I did. Oh, I could see hints of my old friend buried under everything, but the person before me... It would take time for him to figure out who he wanted to be now, once his memory fully returned he'd need to make a few decisions about how he would want to live his life. I just kind of hoped it would include me somewhere in there. I'd given up a hell of a lot because I believed in my friend, I hoped he'd do the same in return. "Don't let what was done to you keep you from taking the chance to start over, that's all I'm saying."

He lifted his head slowly. "It's too dangerous. I'm too dangerous."

"So, what, then? Go back into cryo and never come out? Might as well bite a bullet, it'd get the job done quicker."

A gasp escaped from him at my harsh words and tone, but I could see in his eyes that I was dead on. He would use that damn cryo chamber to avoid facing what he had done. "I can't change the past."

"You're right, you can't change what The Winter Soldier did. You," I stabbed a hand in his direction for emphasis, "did nothing of your own free will. People may not like it, but they will understand."

"And play hero instead? For how long? How many lives do I have to save to atone for all those I destroyed?"

"I don't know," I tell him, "but you won't figure it out by going back in there." I can't tell if I'm getting through to him or not, he's perfected that poker face of his, add in the stubbornness and he might just do something stupid solely to get shoved back in.

"The world doesn't want me... want us. The Accords are proof of that." He tipped his head, eyes narrowing. "You could go under as well. Wake up in fifty years and start over, give them a chance to forget."

I had to admit it wasn't that horrible of an idea. I'd slept seventy years with no obvious ill effects and he had been in and out of cryo stasis for nearly the same length of time, neither of us having aged appreciably since the early 1940s. We each looked maybe months older than we had been the last time we'd seen each other. "I should have looked harder for you," I muttered softly, but along with all the other enhancements came improved hearing and he didn't miss my soft statement.

"Damn it," Steve," he growled. "I fell off a fucking train into a gorge in the depths of the winter, I have no clue how I survived, I shouldn't have."

Neither had I, but others had figured it out. "We think Zola or one of his minions created a primitive version of the super soldier serum and dosed you with it when you were captured in that battle with the 107th." Once the aftermath of Hydra being inside of SHIELD had been dealt with, I'd read that file Nat had gotten for me and it had all sorts of tidbits buried within it. Granted, Buck had never shown any signs of the enhancements I'd been gifted with when with the Howling Commandos, but it seemed the seeds had been planted then and had been enough to allow him to survive that long, icy fall. They'd done plenty more to him after, including the robotic, and later cybernetic replacement arm. Whatever formula used on him had clearly been lost based on the theft of Howard's version of it to create the five recently discovered and killed winter soldiers.

He stared at me for a long moment. "They stuck me with all kinds of stuff before you showed up, so, yeah, I guess that makes as much sense as anything." He rubbed the back of his head, thinking hard. "I'm supposed to be the one saving you, y'know."

I shrugged, trying not to crack a smile. "We can take turns. Just... give this a chance. If it doesn't work-"

"I'll eat that damn bullet before I hurt anyone ever again."

He's serious and I can't really blame him. When Zemo turned that buried programming on he - Bucky - had no clue who any of us were, his focus solely on the mission he'd been given and his need to complete it. We had never even figured out what Zemo had ordered him to do, but it was doubtful it had been good.

"Fair enough," I agreed, only lying the tiniest bit. I'd do everything in my power to keep it from coming to that, but at some point you need to let people decide their own lives, no matter how much it hurts you personally.


	5. Chapter 5

Who knew silence could be quite so deafening.

Wanda looked like she'd taken the worst of it, not yet used to the damage men could do to each other. Yes, she'd suffered and endured horribly thanks to war, but she'd never really waded in hip deep before of her own free will. Battling an army of flying robots could not compare to the blood of innocents caught in the crossfire. Refugees wanting nothing more than to be away from the bullets and bombs and constant fear.

She'd torn off the mask as soon as we'd been on board the quinjet and tossed it aside, her eyes haunted.

Bucky walked to the pilot seat and sat down, powering up the vehicle in preparation for take off, his face unreadable behind the mask he had refused to remove the entire time we'd been on the ground. Four days we'd been there, protecting a group of refugees that had been captured and about to be slaughtered in the name of racial purity.

A stupid reason if you asked me.

Hell, if you asked any of us.

Sam shed his wings and stored them for the trip... not home, but back to our current residence. The dozen Wakandan elite that had come along for the fun had their own way home. We'd repainted the quinjet a matte black with no discernable markings to keep T'Challa from taking the blame for us, but, based on internet chatter, the world had a fair idea we had been hiding out in his neck of the woods.

We didn't much care if they knew and, while T'Challa and his country did not specifically support us, he also didn't bat an eye when we asked for assistance.

Next time he might.

This one had been rough and several of his people had been injured. Okay, most of us had been injured; I would be getting stitches on my leg and back once back and had access to real medical facilities, but there'd been little choice. The refugees with weapons and the ability to use them had been few and far between and had been awake for days by the time we arrived on scene. They had done the best they could but there'd been a trail of death left behind them and they'd been desperate for the assistance.

I wish we could have shoved them into the quinjet and flown them to safety, but there had been far too many to transport and protect at the same time. So, Sam scouted from the air along with a four-person squad of Wakandas on the ground and we walked them to where we knew Red Cross support lay just over the border.

It had been hard travel with children, injured, and the elderly, some of whom not had eaten in days, but we gave up our own rations to them, hunted the local wildlife when we had time and kept them safe. Once we had arrived on scene *not one of the refugees died*. And that, to me, had been all that mattered.

Bucky kept offering to deal with those hunting us; he'd always been one hell of a sniper, but I had refused. Our intent to save people, not kill them, and while we would most certainly shoot back, I did not want to take the fight to those following us.

Even if they did have tanks and mortars and RPGs.

Which is why we looked liked we'd been through a war.

We had.

The quinjet wobbled slightly as it lifted into the air, informing us we would be back to our exile in mere hours.

Wanda took a slow sip of water, hands shaking noticeably.

"You did good," I told her, meaning it in every way imaginable.

With her defensive abilities she'd taken on the brunt of protecting the refugees, able to create entire domes of blocking energy when we'd been attacked from all sides. She'd stopped two RPGs and four mortar strikes that I directly knew of, along with countless bullets fired at all of us. She done more than good, she had saved a lot of people and she should be proud of that fact.

She nodded tightly, pain and exhaustion easy to see on her face and in her eyes.

"They stopped being afraid after you threw that one out of the camp," Sam said as he shifted back into his harness, clearly intending to grab some zzzs while he could.

_That one_ had been an enemy infiltrator, he'd dressed in the clothes of the dead that had been left behind and snuck in, intending to kill as many as he could while they slept. Wanda got to him first.

She hadn't killed him, hadn't hurt more than his pride when she'd used her telekinetic ability to literally throw him from the camp and back into the woods that surrounded us.

He'd been the fool to come charging back into a now fully awake and armed camp. We'd taken him down easily, though for a time those we'd been trying to save had thought we'd been attacking them, until we revealed his face and the insignia he'd been hiding under the stolen clothes.

We'd left him tied high up in a tree where others could find him, packed up camp after far too little rest, and moved on.

No one had questioned Wanda again, nor had there been even the slightest hint of fear anywhere. Far more often than not cheers would go up when she saved them in yet another spectacular display of power.

She gave us a wan smile. "I fear I will never enjoy this type of rescue."

"Good," Bucky all but growled from up front. "If you do..." He trailed off not needing to finish the sentence.

"Kid," Sam mumbled, his eyes at half mast and lowering quickly, "none of us do, but it doesn't change the fact that you... that _we_ did good."

"Did we do enough though?" She looked unhappy and she had a point.

We'd left the refugees in good hands, the UN intending to step in to mediate a solution and hopefully prevent more slaughter and we would have moved on to assist another group, but no others had been seen for days, lost to the wilderness and those that had hunted them with a deadly purpose. Part of me had wanted to go after those who had begun this and stop them, but the lines drawn in the sand these days had been blurred. No clear cut bad guys versus good guys.

It felt painful to long for the days of Hydra and Nazis, for clear targets and goals.

These days we saved who we could and moved on, no longer involved with negotiations to reduce tensions. SHIELD gone and the Avengers all but useless thanks to the Accords. Mankind would just keep tearing itself apart and we could do nothing to stop it... at least not until they asked us.

If aliens from outer space attacked, we would be there defending the world even if not asked, but we could not do their jobs for them any longer.

"What more could we have done?" I asked of her, the snort of derision from the pilot seat let me know Bucky's opinion on the matter. We were still soldiers to a degree, but the war had changed too much for us to be truly effective. The Howling Commandos would be just as lost as we.

She sighed heavily and ran her hands through her hair, still sweaty and stringy from being under the headgear for several days. We hid our faces for obvious reasons, even though it had quickly become obvious to all those we saved had known exactly who had come to assist, they had played deaf and blind, thanked us for the help, but would not be telling others where to find the exiled Avengers.

The ones we saved were smart enough to realize we'd be unable to help others while imprisoned.

"I don't know." She turned to face me. "I miss Stark's tech," she complained.

I agreed with her. We needed a real base of operations, and to not just rely on the largess of T'Challa and Wakanda.

Sam coughed, shaking his head. "She's not wrong. Maybe Lang?"

I hadn't wanted to drag Scott Lang back into this mess, but he clearly had a relationship with Hank Pym, so it might very well be worth reaching out to them. Wakanda had serious tech, but it belonged to them, not us, no matter how generous their King. His debt to Bucky had been met in my opinion and at some point we would need to leave.

We just had no place to go to... yet.

I patted Wanda on the shoulder as I stood. "Get some rest."

She nodded wearily and settled back into the seat, sipping on the water with a bleary look in her eyes.

I went to the front and gingerly sat in the co-pilot seat with a soft groan.

Bucky glanced over at me, face still covered with the mask. He spent a lot of time hiding these days even though it had been three months and the efforts to block the programming appeared to be holding just fine. He waited for that other shoe to drop and nothing I did could assure him it never would.

I stared out at the nighttime sky that whipped past, clouds lit up by the moonlight streaming down.

"Kid's still afraid of what she can do," he finally said after long minutes of silence.

"Sounds familiar." I didn't even turn my head, it remained leaning on my hand, one of the few comfortable positions I could manage at the moment. In my peripheral vision I saw him remove the face mask and set it on the console next to him.

"Well, I would be the resident expert on not trusting one's own mind," he pointed out, tone dry as dust.

"Don't worry, I'll happily punch you in the head to knock you back to your senses." I'd had to do that a few times in the beginning, when we'd been testing ideas to break the conditioning. Even when we'd given him idiotic _missions_ to complete he had not come out of Winter Soldier mode until we'd either shocked him or rang his bell hard enough to give him a concussion on at least one occasion. Awful to think about, but better than Hydra getting a hold of him again.

He snorted and shook his head. "One day that might not be enough."

I shrugged. "Until it is, we'll keep going, it's all we can do."

"Is this really what you want to do with the rest of your life? Babysit," he hooked his thumb over his shoulder at the pair sleeping in back, "and play hero? Don't you want to actually do something for yourself?"

I didn't have an answer for him. At one time, before a war had started across an ocean from my home I'd thought I might be an artist, cartoonist for a paper or something, but that went out the window the moment I'd joined the army. I mean, before this, before Captain America I had just been surviving in a harsh world with the harsher hand dealt to me. Bucky had been my one constant. Little wonder I'd tried everything in my power to be accepted into the military if it gave me even the slightest chance to join him overseas.

"Buck, what else is there? Even if I retired, really retired and chose never to help anyone ever again do you really think they'd leave me alone? That no one would come after me eventually?" I sighed heavily. Doing this had been a compromise in my mind. Even Wanda had felt the need to do something, even if only as penance, to fix what she had broken in Lagos. In my opinion, anyway, she'd paid her dues and more, but she had found some solace in helping others and I doubt she would stop even if I were to walk away. She might very well go back to the Avengers if it would permit her to use her gifts in some way that mattered.

"No. You couldn't stop when you weighed ninety-eight pounds wet, little chance you would now." He chewed on his bottom lip as he pondered his next words. "We need to be more effective. No, we can't prevent an earthquake or a tsunami, but we need better response time." He opened and closed the hand on his cybernetic arm. Proof of the Wakandan's tech level right there. It appeared to be made of tiny hexagonal scales and could change color as he wished and he claimed he had feeling in the appendage, something that had been lacking in the previous models. He'd only had it a few weeks - after we'd been reasonably secure in the blocking of the programming - and still hadn't fully adjusted to it.

He'd only been marginally easier to subdue one-handed, which had been why they'd waited to give it to him. He seemed to like it so far, as well as the built-in tech.

"So, what set up a base and network?"

"It would make the most sense." He drummed his fingers on the arm of the pilot's seat. "Can't hide in Wakanda forever. T'Challa will catch hell for it eventually."

I agreed, in principle at least. "Where? Where do we go?"

He smiled, just a hint mind you, but it was more than he could manage on most days. "Oh, I might know a place."


	6. Chapter 6

We'd gotten onsite fairly quickly, smoke and dust still in the air, a deathly silence lying heavy and thick over everything even with the sirens and screams very much near. We pushed forward into the tunnel, Wanda lifting the collapsed ceiling while Bucky and I shoved bracing into place, creating just enough space to get to those trapped beneath. Sadly, survivors had been few and far between, but the work still needed to be done.

"Sam?"

Like at the earthquake, he'd been scanning the rubble looking for heat signatures, giving us targets to go after.

"Looking," he responded. "Rubble's too thick for me to get a good read. Wish we had JARVIS about now."

No one had questioned our arrival. Or us diving in headfirst to help. We had resources at the ready while they still gathered them together, the fact that we had been nearby just dumb luck. Minutes away instead of hours, though there had been some serious debate about heading to heart Prague while still wanted by the UN. We'd taken a few seconds to decide only to discover that Bucky had already changed course, as if our decision had been foreordained.

Guess it had.

"Dead," Bucky muttered, as he stepped back from the family sedan that had been flattened to a quarter it's original size. "Probably just residual heat from the engine."

"Shit," Sam muttered.

"Does it matter?" Wanda questioned. "We still have to try. Even if we only save one person. We have to keep going."

I nodded in complete agreement, even knowing this search would most likely be a futile one. This kind of battle I had a hard time dealing with. We seemed to lose no matter how hard we worked, no matter how many we saved, those that died weighed heavily on me, making me wish we could somehow prevent the accident from ever happening.

But acts of god were still beyond my power.

Hell, even Thor had his limits.

Could have used his assistance about now, but he still had not been heard from, which could only be expected when you help rule an entire section of the galaxy.

This, however had been no act of god, but a planned out and enacted action. I did not want to say terrorist, since we had no idea who had caused this tunnel collapse, but little chance it had occurred by nartually.

"Military is arriving," Sam warned us, though I doubted they would try to arrest us until after all had been said and done, we would still take all due care.

"Thanks for the heads up." I sighed heavily.

"This feels off," Bucky suddenly grumbled, as he lifted another heavy block of concrete to stabilize the section of roof Wanda had in her telekinetic grip.

"Why?" I asked. We hadn't thought about reasons, just responded to an emergency that had occurred without contemplating the whys of it. We had become well known for assisting in disasters that happened around the globe, so it could be a ploy to capture us, but why collapse a tunnel and kill dozens, if not hundreds, of innocents just to possibly get our attention? That seemed far too callous and stupid even for Ross.

"You know where we are, right?"

I shook my head, other than Prague I had no clue.

"This is the Strahovsky Tunnel."

Shit. Designed to protect civilians in times of war, it could withstand some serious bombing with little more than dust shaking loose and the entire length of it had been brought down in one fell swoop.

I glanced back through the tunnel we had made and others were expanding upon in an effort to clear the rubble and save as many as possible. A major roadway had been blocked by this and every emergency vehicle in the city would be converging here.

"Distraction?" I asked.

He nodded. "I've seen it before. Not on this large a scale, but..."

I could only hope we hadn't been lured into this, but it might very well be possible. While we didn't exactly announce where we went or when, the quinjet was rather distinctive even unmarked. No one said, but they all knew.

A stalemate that could be coming to an end.

"Sam, check the local chatter. See if there could be a bigger target out there."

"On it," he responded, signal breaking up slightly as we pushed deeper into the structure.

Buck grunted in effort as he tore the door off an SUV that had only had it's rear crushed, the passenger compartment mostly intact thanks to the way the ceiling had collapsed, tenting over it. A child's whimper the first sound from within.

"We've got survivors," I bellowed back towards the opening, where crews worked in other areas, making their slow way into the tunnel, removing the rubble with care.

Three men in EMT gear rushed in our direction. I hadn't realized how deep inside we'd gone, several hundred feet at least, the daylight faint and barely visible from where I stood. The LED flashlights strapped to our shoulders far brighter.

The child wailed and Bucky did the last thing I expected and removed the headgear, a worn expression on his face.

He spoke softly in Czech, what I could only assume were soothing words that seemed to work to calm the child, though tears still streaked cheeks along with blood.

I wrenched the driver door open to see a couple in the front seats, neither conscious and reached out to check for a pulse. Both had one, but neither felt very strong. "Alive," I told Bucky with a feeling of relief.

"Might be the only ones." He straightened and looked over the area, Wanda had moved over to us, no longer pushing forward while we tried to save this family.

"I do not see any strong IR readings nearby. He may be right, it may be no more that the vehicles giving off the heat signatures we're seeing." She glanced up at the fallen sheets of concrete. "This had been the only section to fall this way. Unplanned, I think."

A stranger's voice spoke behind us. The EMTs who stared at us, in shock maybe. I looked to Bucky who apparently knew the language that I most certainly did not.

I really needed to start working on that.

All three gasped when they saw Bucky's uncovered face. Everyone knew the Winter Soldier on sight now, and they could probably guess who the rest of us were, but it didn't matter. They could arrest us later, right now we needed to save this family.

Bucky quickly explained the little we knew and then waited for a response. They froze for a moment longer then the one in back shoved between the others to get to the SUV. I ceded my place and turned to Wanda. "Let's make certain this section is stable and then move on."

She nodded, her hands beginning to glow red, a morbid counterpoint to the first bit of positive success in this disaster. I smiled as the small child, maybe two or three years old at most, wailed and reached out to Bucky, the fearsome Winter Soldier, who held out his hand, his cybernetic hand, for the child to grasp onto for a few seconds, more words in a calm soothing tone coming from him.

He stepped to the side as the EMT who had gasped in surprise, slid into place to care for the child. He said something to which Bucky responded then nodded and went to work.

"What did he say?" I asked, curious.

Bucky slid his head gear back into place, hiding his face again. "He asked if I was a father." He shrugged. "I have a weird knack with kids."

I laughed softly. "We could start a daycare, I suppose, when we get tired of this hero gig."

We both heard Wanda laugh at that and headed towards her.

"Cap, I think I got something."

I sighed. I could not get Sam to stop calling me Cap. I had stopped being Captain America the moment I dropped that shield to the floor in Siberia. That mantle had been left behind. I hadn't quite figured out if intended to wear another, but for now I was content to take the time to figure it out.

"And that would be?"

"UN Security Council is in town. They've locked down the building they are in for the time being."

"Which makes them a big target," I stated with a sigh of irritation.

Bucky glanced over his shoulder at me, even with the mask on I could hear the 'I told you so.'

"Warn 'em."

"Cap, I can't. I got about three minutes of chatter then it stopped dead."

"Jammers," Bucky stated, turning about. "Hit'll be soon."

I nodded in agreement. All resources would have been diverted here to rescue any survivors of the collapsed tunnel. Only minimal security would have remained behind and with them locked down tight behind closed doors... "Shit," I muttered.

"Where?"

"The Kongresové Centrum across the river."

"Go," I ordered. "we'll get to the quinjet and be there as fast as we can."

Wanda let the red light around her hands die out and we turned to run back down the tunnel we had made, leaving the rescuers to do their jobs for now.

On my way," Sam assured me.

"Contact Ross, let him know what we suspect."

"Is that wise?" Wanda asked, having no interest in going back to the Raft, for which I could not blame her.

"No choice." If the UN committee could get their asses in gear, help could be on the way in minutes, presuming they believed us, of course.

"And Tony?" Sam asked, sounding as unsure as I felt on the matter.

"Do it."

We broke out into the daylight and ran.

 

~^~^~^~^~

 

Time.

The would never be enough of it.

For ordinary people, at least.

Some of us had too much of it, or had used too little of it, depending on your perspective.

Right now I wished we had a hell of a lot more of it.

Buck and Sam took out the security that came for us, refusing to listen to thing we said, and demanding our instant surrender as soon as we left the quinjet. They didn't hurt them, not really. Just disarmed them and bruised them a bit, probably deeper injuries to their egos than anything else.

Still it took Bucky ripping off the mask and charging inside with weapons borrowed from the security teams to get those inside to realize that we did indeed want them out of that building. A few shots fired into the ceiling along with Wanda using her powers to shove them into motion finally got their attention.

Chaos ensued, but they were moving. I got them out the doors, while Sam encouraged them to hightail it for the grassy area on far side of the parking lot, though I doubted a minimum safe distance could be achieved before the bomb went off.

I hate it when I'm right.

When the time came we had mere seconds of warning.

Sam got out a surprised, "Cap, comms are back up," before the world exploded.

A roar of deafening sound, made worse by the headgear we wore, rumbled out from above and below us. I pushed those I could forward and out the doors even as the rush of compressed air slapped us forward like Mjolnir hitting my shield.

I rolled off the couple I had tried to protect with my body to see Wanda stagger out holding a up a massive shield to protect those still on their feet. It put her in the line of fire, but she refused to move until all those that could be saved had been. Bucky stood nearby, the weapons left behind in favor of preventing a wall from collapsing atop a crowd of people who had been knocked to the ground in the initial explosion.

I got up, groaning and suspecting I had a couple broken ribs for my trouble. I ushered the remaining few who still could stand away as an odd blue glow took over the air and the building began to eat itself. Huge blocks of concrete and metal being dragged back in towards the center. I grabbed Bucky and pulled him away even as the wall he'd been supporting shifted away from him.

"What the hell?" he muttered, bracing against the inexorable pull from what felt like a singularity. Which just should not be possible. Not here. In the middle of a major city.

"Wanda," Sam barked and we turned to see her trying to save a dozen or so people who had been caught in the tidal pull of the wormhole that had opened up in the middle Prague.

She had fallen to her knees, the strain evident in her posture as she fought a gravity well just to save a few more lives. I got over to her and added my strength to hers, held her in place so she would not need to do more than concentrate on maintaining the red energy that might be the only chance they had. Just as it looked as if she would lose, that holding onto the people would do more harm than good, the bluish light died and she had to change her focus to keep from throwing the survivors into the river by accident.

She got them to the ground, alive for the most part, let go of the power and damn near passed out cold from exhaustion.

A deep silence settled over everything for several long seconds, then car alarms began to wail.

She tried to sit up, but I held her in place as Sam and Bucky joined us, to stare in amazement at what remained of the conference center. I glanced over towards the quinjet, which had shifted position, dragged towards the center of destruction by a power that should not have been possible. "You all saw that, right?"

"You mean what looked like a blue, glowing black hole open up and try to eat us, yeah," Sam snarked, the worry and no little fear not entirely covered by the snark.

"Very strong," Wanda muttered as she lifted a hand for help up. Bucky obliged her, pulling her upright with care.

She brushed off some of the dust that had clung to her and squared her shoulders, that glow appearing about her fingers as if she needed to see if she had enough power to continue.

"Wanda, there's nothing else you can do," I told her, setting a hand on her shoulder.

She shook her head in disagreement, but didn't have the energy to speak just yet.

Sirens could be heard in the distance, more rescue personnel drummed up from somewhere and coming here.

Bucky slid his headgear up so I could see the shocked look his face. "That looked like Hydra tech."

I nodded in agreement. Hell, it looked liked the hole that had eaten the Red Skull just before I'd forced that damn plane down into the arctic. "We'll make sure they know."

I glanced behind me, the security personnel and the members of the council and those who had simply worked in the center all watching us. I could practically hear their thoughts, wondering if we had been the one to cause this disaster even though we had done everything our power to save them.

Little wonder given we stood there, faces hidden, dressed in unmarked black uniforms that were clearly military, or military adjacent to say the least. We denied who we were even as we attempted to do what little good we could.

"We should go." Bucky no longer appeared too thrilled with our current situation. Emergency services on the way, probably with a military escort, plus the UN security here watching us with a wariness that even I had to admit could be justified.

Wanda set a hand on my forearm for support. She looked ready to collapse as violently as the conference center had. "No, we stay until we find everyone."

Bucky shook his head slowly, but didn't argue.

"Cap, we've got some of the fire suppression gear in the quinjet."

I nodded. "Get it." Then to Wanda. "You up for some more?"

"Always," she responded, a strength to her words that I had not expected.

Had to admire her for her gumption if nothing else.

"Same routine as the tunnel. Wanda lifts, we prop and triage where we can. And we need to watch for fires and secondary implosions." I fired off the orders as always, but hadn't expected the civilians we'd gotten out to approach where we stood.

"How can we help?" a tiny woman with steel gray hair asked in broken English from several feet behind us.

"Ma'am, there's no need-"

She cut me off with a stern look. "There's every need. Others are within and you are only four."

I couldn't argue with that and nodded. Then we went to work.


	7. Chapter 7

I still wished I could get drunk.

I could see that Bucky needed that too, but both of us were out of luck, the changes made to our bodies prevented us from even enjoying a hint of a buzz. Even Thor's 'this is not for mortal men' alcohol hadn't done anything for me, which is kind of scary given Thor had most certainly gotten at least a dash of drunk that night before Ultron made his grand appearance and screwed over our lives.

Still, I sipped at the beer, slouched down in the chair as I stared numbly into the air about three feet in front of me.

We'd been back barely twelve hours, enough time to clean up and grab some sleep, and, in my case, get taped up. Turned out two ribs had indeed been broken along with assorted bruises, cuts and scrapes for the lot of us. We hadn't walked away unharmed, but better us than others, that's why we did this. To take the hard knocks normal people would not survive.

T'Challa had joined us, without any of his security nearby, making this as much a debriefing as a post-mission decompression get together.

"How bad?" Sam asked as he limped about the room, sitting too uncomfortable at the moment, some shrapnel from the initial explosion caught him in the hamstring. A nice neat puncture. Painful, but not life threatening by any stretch of the imagination.

T'Challa set the tablet down on the table and waved it on. A dozen videos sprang to life in the air about it, all different angles of the collapse of the conference center. The blue haze clearly visible no matter how crappy the video quality.

"Half of those known to have been inside are missing. A third of the delegates gone. Assumed to be dead. Over a hundred dead in the tunnel collapse as well, but the focus of the investigation is now on the apparent use of Hydra tech in an attack on the UN Security Council." He stood stock still, a frown on his handsome face.

"Has anyone claimed responsibility?" Bucky asked, rolling the condensation coated bottle back and forth between his hands, his one arm a dour gray in color, oddly reflective of his current mood.

"No. And I find that worrying." T'Challa picked up his drink and took a long swallow, using a hand to rotate the images. "The Avengers arrived on site two hours after you left." He sighed heavily.

"Hey, I called as soon as I was told to," Sam said with a shrug of his shoulders, "Not our fault they couldn't get off their asses faster."

Too true. They had to wait for an order from a committee to even suit up, little wonder they didn't arrive until well after we'd set up a plan for search and rescue and turned it over to the locals to go deal with our injuries. We'd stayed until well into the night, until even we ran out of energy and had intended to stay and continue to work after catching some sleep, but had instead been encouraged to leave before UN forces arrived.

No one we had helped wanted to see us arrested.

And I could not be more thankful for that.

Still, I felt we had not done nearly enough to earn the praise that had been all over the news.

No, we hadn't run from the cameras this time, and there'd been some seriously sharp footage of all of us. Some with headgear off as we took a moment to recoup before heading back into the fray.

"We should have stayed," I muttered, not certain I cared about being a fugitive any longer. We would be of no use hiding behind T'Challa's skirts every time it got risky. The real danger had already happened, maybe we needed to work on preventing it.

"No," Wanda shook her head. "We'd done all we could. Though I have to wonder why no one suspected there might be an attack. Even I can see it had been planned well beforehand."

"That is a valid concern," T'Challa agreed. "My intelligence saw nothing worrisome for that meeting."

"Inside job?" Bucky suggested, and I grunted as if kicked.

"Hydra is still out there, no reason it could not have gotten into the UN. Or even just the convention center staff. Point of detonation was under the building, right? The service tunnels?" I glanced at his Highness who nodded slowly.

"Or just some random terrorist who happened upon some forgotten cache." Sam just had to play devil's advocate.

It would be so much easier to be able to point a finger and place the blame, but he had the right of it, with Hydra broken, their files open to anyone, anyone could find their bases and play merry hell with weapons and tech they found.

"Shit," I muttered, earning a snort of amusement from Wanda. Even she had heard about the now infamous _language_ incident.

"This is most concerning. There are potentially dozens of Hydra bases that have yet to be discovered." T'Challa pointed out with more than a touch of dismay in his voice.

"Hundreds," Bucky corrected, causing the King of Wakanda to frown deeply. "Hydra is extremely compartmentalized, only a few at the highest levels would know where every single base and storehouse is. And given they've all supposedly been eliminated," He tipped his head to the side, "we may never find them all."

"That is something we could do," Wanda suggested. "Find them and secure them. See to it whatever lies within does not fall into the wrong hands."

"And it should be in yours?" T'Challa countered in a sneering tone.

"I trust us." She nodded at me. "I trust him to do the right thing in any given situation."

"As do I," T'Challa agreed. "But I cannot help you with this."

I sighed softly, even knowing this day would come I still had hoped it would not be quite so soon. "It's time for us to leave."

"I fear so," His Majesty conceded. "There can be no mistaking who aided those in Prague. They will come for you."

"And you've lost your plausible deniability," Sam grumbled, not that we'd grown overly comfortable here, but we'd needed the time to figure out our place in this brave new world.

T'Challa spread his hands wide.

I sat up straighter, we'd been planning for this, but had not yet made any decisions simply because we had very limited resources. Wakanda had been providing gear, and fuel and repairs and... and a home, no matter how temporary. On our own we had very little to work with. Oh, we would manage, but it would not be easy. We'd become dependent on having unlimited money and tech thanks to Tony, it would take time to adjust, but we'd manage and we would keep going.

"We understand, your Highness. We'll need a few days to pack and..."

"Steven, I am not going to just force you out. I will do what I can to facilitate the transition and would like to be able to call upon you if needed." He set his drink down and waved the tablet off, the looping videos vanishing and dimming the light in the room noticeably.

"Of course," Wanda responded. "Anything we can do. We owe you a debt."

T'Challa shook his head. "No, all debts have been paid." He looked to Bucky who nodded, face a neutral mask.

"Enjoy your evening. Let my people know what you need for your journey."

I stood, ignoring the discomfort along my left side and walked with him to the door of the apartment. "Thank you for all you have done for us," I told him, keeping my voice down. I wanted these words to be private, "and for understanding."

"No need, but you will still need to take care. While the Hydra asset may be gone, those who will want revenge still have a face to place blame upon. Many will not be able to separate James Barnes from The Winter Soldier."

The ghost of the Winter Soldier weighed heavily on Bucky even now and I doubted the burden would get any lighter as his memories continued to return. His crimes went back well over seventy years so there stood little chance of him being able to atone for any of them no matter how badly he may want to. I scratched my ear as I responded, "They can't hold him for long."

T'Challa chuckled for a moment, shaking his head, then turned serious. "But they can kill him."

I glanced back into the room where my oldest friend had gotten up to pour another round for the others. "Can they?"

T'Challa's lips formed a thin line. "I would prefer neither of you find out."

"Me too. Goodnight, T'Challa." I held out my hand to be shaken, which he did with a firm grip.

"Good luck, Captain."

He turned about and strode away, one hands tucked deep into the pocket of his slacks the other holding the tablet. The weight upon his shoulders surely a heavy burden.

Probably heavier than mine, but I daresay we both had the strength needed to keep going.

I rejoined the group, Bucky handing me a glass of some potent local liquor that smelled similar to cinnamon. I downed a sip then gasped. "Dear god, what is this?"

"Potent," Sam answered with a grin as he took a taste from his own glass. "We need to figure out what we're gonna do next."

"We do what we have been," Wanda stated, swirling that liquor in her glass before tossing it back. "Where are we going to go?" She looked at Bucky, not me.

"Why are you looking at me? I've been asleep for most of the last century." He perched on the edge of the table, attempting to look casual and didn't miss the mark by much. He still didn't trust himself, his memory still full of holes, his personality still... off. Bucky there, but decidedly changed. The fact that he had joined us for drinks, stayed after T'Challa had left a huge step for him, as he still tended to keep isolated from anyone except for me and only then because I gave him no choice.

In the field he fell back onto his skills, finding it far easier to play the part of soldier than man.

Had to admit I had the same problem. I'd gotten better, but I'd been forced into interactions for several years thanks to SHIELD and the Avengers, Bucky had been on his own since D.C. and on the run. That required an entirely different state of mind. He had yet to come out of isolation mode.

"Buck, they're not idiots."

He glanced from Wanda to Sam. "Well, she isn't. Not sure about him yet."

Sam just rolled his eyes. They worked well together, Bucky integrating into the group fairly easily, but trust between the two had yet to be found.

Understandable, given the way things had fallen apart for all of us. And Bucky had kind of beat up Sam soon after they had met. Bucky and Wanda had more in common in some ways. Both outcasts, both having worked for Hydra only to discover all that they had been told to be a lie. Wanda had walked into it blind, her hatred of Stark greater than her fear of Hydra. Bucky had been forced in all unwilling and been used and damn near broken because of it. A good man who had been used to do very bad things.

"We've got a place picked out."

"That why he's been going on road trips?" Sam asked, nodding towards Bucky.

I nodded. "We'll only have basics, but it's livable."

"We've been spoiled by Stark, we'll make do," Wanda told us, sounding unconcerned.

"We need money," Sam argued. "Fuel for the quinjet ain't cheap."

"There's always gofundme," Wanda suggested, trying to hide a grin.

Sam laughed, the sound harsh. "Yeah, that'll work. Support the ex-Avengers in their efforts to clean up the messes the official Avengers can't be bothered to deal with."

No, Sam had not become the least bit bitter after all of this.

Bucky and I just met each other's eyes, not certain what the hell a gofundme was, but not about to ask and remind everyone how clueless we could be in the twenty-first century.

"We'll make this work." I didn't know how, but we would. As long as we stayed together we'd be just fine. That I knew to be true. Sad it happened to be the same logic Nat had argued to get me to sign the Accords in London. Hopefully, this would work out a bit better for all of us.

Wanda and Sam glanced at each other, but no complaints came from either one.

"When do we leave?" Sam finally asked.


	8. postscript(s)

 

 

 

_postscript: primus_

We drank and talked until late, dawn only a few hours away when we headed our separate ways. I cleaned up and grabbed a glass a water, staring out the window at the incredible view that had come with the place and knew I would miss it. No, it hadn't been home, but it had provided a needed respite from the war that had happened between Tony and I. From the Accords had broken the Avengers.

I had lost one connection to the past only to find another. That said, I was beginning to believe the past might just need to stay there. This world we lived in now too different to ever feel right to me. But that could change if I just learned to adapt a bit better. I hadn't watched the world grow and change, hadn't experienced the leaps and bounds technology had taken while I slept the decades away. Had woken up to a brand new world that had no clue what to do with me and my outdated perspective of right and wrong.

I tried to fit in, but could not, not really. I clung to a past and set of morals that were long dead and turned to dust.

And yet... and yet there were those who looked up to me, who relied on me to make the right call in any given situation simply because of those very same morals.

Standing my ground, doing what I believed deep down in my soul must be right, had broken the Avengers and made I and my friends fugitives, probably for the rest of our lives.

Maybe I needed to learn to compromise a little?

But if I compromised here and there, eventually it would become all I did and then what would I have left?

Yes, the world had been a messy place back in the forties, but there were clear lines between right and wrong. Good and evil. Here and now they had become blurred, fuzzed out and smudged to the point where, to some, the only logical route involved doing things that they did not truly believe in.

I could not do that.

More, I would not.

With a heavy sigh I pushed the deep thoughts aside and changed for bed, hoping I would be able to sleep for more than a few hours; the dreams only abating slightly with time and distance from the actual events they recalled.

I turned off the lights, my eyes taking a moment to adjust to the darkened room, when I noticed a faint light blinking on the desk across from me. My phone lay on the nightstand, so it couldn't be that and the computer had been shut down, unneeded for the time being.

Confused, I walked over to the desk, not wanting to deal with the tiny blue light blinking on and off all night long. The light came from the flip phone I always kept on and charged - just in case. The pair to the one I had sent Tony months ago as a peace offering

I never really expected to use it. Tony's hurt far too deep to be easily excised. And once he realized, which he would by now with certainty, that I had stayed with Bucky, the chances of him ever speaking to me again dropped precipitously.

Yet, the little blue LED blinked at me in the darkened room. A bright beacon calling to me, waiting for me to act upon it.

I picked the flip phone up, fumbling it open to see a text waiting for me.

_Good work._

That's all. Just two words, but more than I had ever hoped to receive.

For an instant I debated doing nothing. To not respond and leave him wondering and waiting as I had been for long months. Of course, this could also be a ploy, a move to ascertain my location with certainty, but if T'Challa were correct, then the world already knew and were turning a blind eye for the time being simply because it's hard to arrest a hero. Putting us in chains after Prague would make them look like idiots and a fair portion of the world's population might just very well cry foul.

Hell, maybe we were needed after all.

So, I took the middle road and sent a single word back: _thanks_

That night, for the first time in months, I did not dream about that look of terror in Tony's eyes.

 

_~^~^~^~^~_

 

_postscript: secundus_

"When was this place last used?" Sam asked swiping his fingers through the thick dust atop a piece of severely outdated equipment.

"Mid-eighties," Bucky answered, leading us deeper into the facility.

While not the largest Hydra base I had seen, it still would leave us rattling about like marbles in a coffee can, which I realized, with no little dismay, was as an outdated an idea as me and Buck.

"It'll need some serious updating before we'll be effective, but the foundation is solid and we're completely off the grid," Buck pointed out as we stepped into a huge open area. He pointed upwards. "Roof opens to allow helos in. Quinjet should fit... just. We'll need to clear the outside of debris, but that should only take a few days."

"This is... impressive," Wanda finally said, her eyes roving everywhere and missing little. We'd trained her well. "There's power here."

Bucky nodded. "Off for now, but it works." He glanced over at me. "I checked when I scouted the place."

I nodded. Not certain what to say. When he'd said he might have a place for us to go, and showed me the layout and location, I hadn't thought about what that would really mean. Of course, he would know about other Hydra facilities, and while the Avengers had been cleaning them up after D.C. and the release of all the Hydra/SHIELD files, there was little chance those were the only bases to have been created over the years.

He hadn't given me any details, and I hadn't asked, trusting him to have a reasonable grasp of what we needed to move forward with our insane plan to form our own group of heroes. "What was this place?" I asked, wondering what horrors had been committed here over the years.

"Admin, mostly. Some R&D. Bigwigs would gather here for demos of assets and new weapons."

And that explained how Bucky knew about it. He'd probably been shown off here a time or two. A preview of the deadly skills of the Winter Soldier before being sent off to assassinate his next target. "Weapons cache?"

He shrugged. "Probably. I didn't explore in detail."

He'd checked out a couple dozen locations on his solo trips. Every time he left I'd worried he might not return, might just disappear and try to start over again. I would have hated him for it, but also understood. He stayed with us in Wakanda mostly because he had no easy way to hide any longer. The whole world knew the face of the Winter Soldier and many would turn him in without batting an eye. Others would try to use him, take advantage of that weakness in him and turn him back into the monster he believed himself to be.

Prague had been a turning point of sorts for him, him showing his face to the world, revealing that Bucky Barnes still lived and could still be a good man seemed to loosen something in him. His memories, both good and bad, not quite the burden they had been before that day.

"This is going to take a lot of work," Sam complained, and I agreed.

Dust and dirt lay over everything, old equipment, older secrets and who knew what else buried within this mountain, and all of it would need to be gone through in detail. "What, you too good for some old fashioned house cleaning?" I snarked, hiding the grin I felt.

Sam complaining felt like a good thing to me. He could see the possibilities here.

"Spoiled," he argued. "The compound didn't exactly require much help from us."

I couldn't disagree with that. We had been spoiled, but this would be good for us. We'd learn to work together in ways that didn't require risk to life and limb. We'd rebuild this place together and be all the stronger for it.

"Well, I didn't want us somewhere we could be found easily," Bucky reminded, heading for a pair of double doors on the far side of the landing area. "And this one had the least damage done to it. Some of them had already been found by SHIELD or the Avengers and had been stripped. Looks like this one got forgotten. Besides, " he opened the doors with a decided flourish, "you can't beat the view."

A huge conference room lay on the other side, walls to the right and left covered in ancient video screens, a dust covered oval table in the center, but directly across were windows, huge floor to fifteen foot ceiling windows, that leaned out into the open air.

We all made our way over to discover the windows had been carved into a sheer cliff face overlooking a tumbling river far below us. To the right a couple hundred yards away, a waterfall roared, clearly the source of energy for the power plant. Across from us the tree covered mountainside held a layer of snow, softening the sharp near vertical face of the landscape. The clouds overhead shifted just then, allowing a bright beam of sunlight to strike the far side, lighting up the entire valley in a golden glow.

Sam whistled, impressed. "Okay, yeah, I can get with this."

I looked over at Wanda, who had placed her hands on the glass to lean forward against it, looking straight down. She glanced at me and simply nodded.

I clapped a hand on Bucky's shoulder. "Looks like we're home."

He gave me a smile, and in that instant Bucky, that kid I grew up with back in Brooklyn so many years ago, returned.

 

 

_finis_


End file.
